


Westerosi One-Shot #1: Under the Western Sky

by arianrhod1



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Essos, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28646154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arianrhod1/pseuds/arianrhod1
Summary: Nearly twenty years ago, Daenerys Targaryen died at the hands of her lover Jon Snow, plunging the world back into darkness and slavery. Dany's last ally, the once-famed Daario Naharis, shelters her daughter Rhaella in the city of Volantis, waiting for the time to retake Dany's empire.
Relationships: Daario Naharis/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25





	Westerosi One-Shot #1: Under the Western Sky

**Author's Note:**

> I'm intending for this to be a one-and-done, but if anyone wants more chapters please let me know! I've read all the published works of ASOIAF but I haven't really seen the show, and this kind of mixes the canons of both.

“You will remain here, and you will hold Meereen for me.”

He smiled down at her, the small beautiful khaleesi who had come to mean so much to him. “As you wish, my queen. Until we meet again.”

Her violet eyes held his for a moment as a sad smile appeared on her lips. “Until we meet again.”

Then the room around them disappeared, and he found himself alone on the side of a volcanic mountain. The sky was dark and dusky, the mountainside illuminated only by the unnatural pulsing orange glow of molten rock beneath. He tried to draw breath and choked on the smoky air. 

_You failed me._ The words came from within him as much as around him. 

“I failed you.” He could not lie, not to her. 

_You failed me, and you let me die. Now it is your turn._

“No!” he begged, growing frantic. “Please, my queen, let me live long enough to avenge you, to destroy those who wronged you!”

 _You wronged me!_ The terrible scream shook the mountainside, and a wide crack opened up beneath him. He screamed as he fell, clawing at something, something, anything to pull himself up, to live a second longer. 

He awoke sweating and panting, tangled in his bedroll. He sat up, slowing his breathing and pounding heart. He dreamt of her almost nightly now. As the roaring in his head quieted, he became aware of another sound. From across the room, slow, quiet breathing could be heard. He raised his hand to the pouch around his neck, almost involuntarily, and felt the sharp tooth within. 

The fear of death had gone out of Daario Naharis decades ago, long before he had met the beautiful queen with the purple eyes and the silver-gold hair. Now, after all that had happened, he would welcome the end with open arms when it came.

But not now. Not yet. There was still too much to be done. 

Daario heard a horse whicker, then muffled voices from below. Outside, the morning bustle of Volantis had begun. He stretched his aching arms and legs, and rose wearily from his sleeping mat. He had slept on the ground for much of his life, but he was a young man no longer. 

At the window, he pulled the ragged curtains back to bring in the gray light of the dawn. In the pale light that bathed the room, he could make out Rhae, still asleep on her mat. So young, and so beautiful. He had long swelled with pride when men told him that his girl looked like him. Her skin was lighter, though darkened in the Volantene sun, and her hair was dark and glossy in a way that his hadn’t been in years. She looked so young and vulnerable asleep that it nearly broke Daario’s hardened heart. He would let her sleep, though the sun was rising.

The sun warmed Essos in all seasons, unlike that hellish frozen land where his sweet queen had been betrayed. For a moment, he leaned out of the small window, watching the sun rise over the great blue water. Farther east lay Slaver’s Bay, once called the Bay of Dragons for his queen and her children. 

_Why must the sun rise in the east?_ wondered Daario, not for the first time. Something Daenerys had once said to him lingered in his mind. _I can bear you no children of my body. Not until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east._ He’d laughed and told her he wanted none. A sellsword could not raise children. Still, she had been the only woman Daario would ever want a child with. And Daario Naharis had known many a woman. 

Daario leaned the other way, looking west, to Lys, and farther, to the southernmost tip of Westeros. There lay Dorne. Daario Naharis had never left Essos, but as a young man he had dreamt of journeying to Dorne. Many years ago, soon after his queen’s murder, a one-armed Westerosi sellsword by the name of Conney had told Daario that he reminded Conney of a certain hot-tempered and hotter-driven Dornish prince. It had stung then - one of Dany’s last letters had told him Dorne stood with her. _When we need allies in the future, we should look to the brave Martells._

Daario could not see Lys from his window in Volantis, nevermind Dorne, but he found his gaze drawn westward still, upward, into the sky. High above the land and water, on the very edge of the world visible from the window, a great bleeding red spot burned on the horizon. A fiery comet, a bloodstained star. 

A sun rising in the west. 

Daario stiffened. Essos had not seen a red comet for over twenty years, and the last time it had brought with it hellfire on dragon wings, brimstone in a woman’s fiery determination. 

Liberation, but bloody liberation. 

Her words echoed in his mind again. _I can bear you no children of my body. Not until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east._

Daario turned to look at Rhae again. She was now nearing eighteen, older than her mother had been when Daario had met her, and taller than Dany had ever been. Her father, the northerner, must have looked a bit like him, he knew, but he had not loved Dany like Daario had. Daario had held Meereen for her, fought as the city around him fell, fled and carried on his love’s work. He had lived for her and he would have died for her. And the northern king killed her. 

_Jon Snow. Jon Stark. Aegon Targaryen._ Whatever the man’s name, he could not hide from Daario. 

Rhae shifted and opened her eyes. They looked almost grey in the half-light, but he knew they were as violet as her mother’s. 

She smiled up at him, and he could not help but smile back. “Good morning, Father,” she said, stretching her long arms above her head. 

“Good morning, Rhaella.” Daario tousled the girl’s hair affectionately. “Darling, can I tell you a story about your mother?”

**Author's Note:**

> I think I've decided to make this a series, but not necessarily building off of this. Might do some Westerosi One-Shots? Stay tuned!


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